Linux Server Sales to Reach $9.1 Billion by 2008

dunric writes "ZDNet is reporting that sales of servers using Linux will reach a whopping $9.1 billion by 2008. Annual revenue for Linux servers is expected to grow by a healthy 22.8 percent, compared to just 3.8 percent for the overall server market. Additionally, Linux servers will account for nearly 26% of all server shipments."

Comments

Re:Wow, $9.1 billion sales

[lachlan76]

This is sales of Linux *SERVERS*, not the OS itself.

And anyway, a few of the main distros are paid for (Mandrake, RHEL, SuSE, etc).

Interesting

[ryanw]

This news is interesting but what would be interesting to see is which markets Linux servers are eating up. People of /. are going to assume "FINALLY THE DOWN FALL OF MICROSOFT!". But the truth of the matter is Linux is probably eating up the markets of AIX, HP-UX, SunOS, Alpha, etc. Look at Sun's stock.... Down over 30% from last year? Even if this statistic is true I don't think Microsoft is probably losing any business but rather our fellow UNIX brothers. Go Linux!?

Tip of the iceburg

[NZheretic]

IDC has always based its survey data around sales of servers with Linux pre-installed. IDC barely scratches the surface. They do not count the number of whitebox systems sold, OEM systems sold with Microsoft's OSs and older hardware now running Linux fulltime.

The last eight Intel servers I installed were all assembled from good quality motherboards, fans and better quality ATX power supplies into run of the mill whitebox full/mid tower cases.

If space is not an issue then I find that taking time to assemble a well laid out PC case delivers better reliability than Intel based 1U or 2U rackmounted servers.

Servers Running Linux

[halcyon1234]

{sigh} Why do I have this awful feeling that the reason there will be 2.8 Gargillion dollars worth of sales will be because everyone and their brother is going to open up a "Servers that Run Linux" company? And you know that the 2.8 Suptexillion dollars will be coming out of the pockets of companies that don't realize that they can just buy a server and install Linux themselves. Or hire someone to do it for the fraction of the cost of a "Linux Server".

Seriously, saying "Linux Server" to a CEO has one of two effects. One, they glaze over and continue using their familiar "Windows Server". Two, they think you're really smart and give you lots of money. Sure, there's the rare third case where they'll realize "Linux = OS, Server = Hardware", but chances are they're the CIO.

Does this mean I should open a "Servers The Run Linux" eBusiness? Amazonux.com, perhaps?

Re:Servers Running Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to make a financial case, since that is what business people understand.

Tell your boss that you have some ideas for neat software you would like to write that would help your company make more money (like software to track the return on those stupid advertisements). (to figure out what software to right, spend a lot of time talking with your co-workers and find out what sorts of problems they have doing their jobs)

Talk with your boss for a half hour about the software and how it would make tens of thousands of dollars for the company. Get him all excited, and then when he asks when you can do it, give him a 6 months schedule.

He will ask why not sooner, and you explain that it is because you are so busy with system administration. He will ask if you could cut out any time, and then you sort of reluctantly say "Well, I guess I could get a used machine that didn't breakdown so often. But that would be 600 dollars, that is a lot of money to spend" and he will get angry at you and say, "That's stupid, the software would earn us thousands," and ORDER you to buy it.

Psychology, everything is psychology.

Forecast for when?

[wulfbyte]

Whenever I see words like forecast and prediction buried, I wonder what the motivation of the writer is. I dug around a very little bit and found this link to an IDC ress release that this is based on (I think). IDC - Press Release http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=pr2004_1 1_02_093312 Reading the press release, I could only think to myself "uhm, duh, who couldn't see that coming." I do wonder how they came up with the time frame though. Four years seems like a long time to predict anything in the IT business with any accuracy.

not dollars, but numbers

[b17bmbr]

the dollar amont is not as important as the number of units. 9.1 billion is like, what, 100 sun servers? seriously though, the numbers of servers shipped is more important. because alot of that will be replacing NT servers. and alot of that will be new server infrastructure. every linux server sold is one less windows server, regardless whether it replaces a sun/ibm or not. dollar sales are a relative figure. what matters if the total number of servers, or market share. and what matters is what they're used for. are they just serving up web pages or are they running the backbone of business web applications? if linux is relegated to the periphery, it won't matter a whole lot.

By 2008??

[wirelessbuzzers]

Who will be able to predict the market in 2008? With spam, viruses and hacker attacks escalating, and Longhorn due to be released... who really knows what the market will be like then?

ZDNET

[harryoyster]

ZDNET is just another publishing company that generally have b grade IT writers. Just look at the spam software show down. Hangon.. where is spamassassin.. maybe they didnt pay zdnet enough money to advertise thier product so it wasnt included.

Re:Interesting....

[Diag]

I have seen Linux displacing other O/S'es for consolidation purposes, and usually Linux itself is not the driving factor.

For example, VMWare/ESX is gaining a lot of market consolidating hundreds of Windows servers (usually test/dev) down to a dozen or so Intel servers running VMWare/ESX, which is Redhat Linux running VMWare. But the Linux side of it is almost invisible. I have spoken to VMWare administrators who refused to believe that it was running on Linux.

Also, I've seen large Oracle databases moved from Sun or HP hardware, to IBM Intel servers running Oracle RAC on Redhat. In that case, Oracle and Intel platform are the driving factors. Again, the Linux is packaged sepecfically to run Oracle RAC, so server administration is minimal.

My point is that, in my somewhat limited experience, people are not purposely moving to Linux, it's more that vendors are packaging their products that way, and it makes sense in many cases.

Re:ZDnet = page hit whores

[javilon]

The only problem being that many slashdotters use ad blocking tools... :-)

What about support costs

[Vulcann]

ZDNet is reporting that sales of servers using Linux will reach a whopping $9.1 billion by 2008...

Considering Linux (and OSS in general) makes money via support offerings, shouldnt this be added to the overall $$$ amount ? Does 9.1. billion include support charges or simply the cost of hardware ?

Another thing I routinely keep hearing about is that hardware is going to keep become VERY cheap (as a matter of fact there were some articles suggesting it might even become free in the long term). If one cant sell hardware, and cant sell the OS, where the hell does 9.1 billion come from ? "Voluntary donation" ??

Re:What about support costs

[rimmon]

I don't think that server grade hardware is going to be available free of charge anytime soon. Maybe you will get a pc for free like you get a cellphone for free if you sign a service contract. But don't forget: That isn't really free, the costs are hidden. And stay the hell away with cheap crap like that from my serverroom :)

Re:Another reason to like Linux:

[Anne Thwacks]

While that may be true, it has nothing to do with Linux - gnu tools worked fine on Solaris and BSD (and many other os's) before Linus was in secondary school.

ObSol10

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporate purchasing has as much to do with IT directors furthering their careers by riding the trends than pure economics. With constantly increasing bangs per buck you can always do what you did 3 years ago for a fraction of the cost, but no-one gets that corporate promotion by doing the same thing as the last IT manager did. You've got to rip out UNIX and replace it with NT, showing the millions you saved ('96 to '00) or rip out proprietry UNIX and replace it with Linux ('01-'05?). People may see through the ripping out what you've got, replacing it with the new version of what you've got and claiming to save millions. Just leaving what you've got there and replacing it with newer, cheaper stuff when needed is for nerds with no ambition.

I think this article misses the fact that not only are people in the corporate world finally getting the issues with Linux in the enterprise, but by 2006 there should be an established new new new thing: Rip out your big ol' SPARC systems and downsize to Solaris x86. Save those zillions, get the promotion, and still get the warm fuzzies of a familiar and manageable enterprise platform.

Don't get me wrong: No OS other than Linux (well, maybe a couple of bsds a few years back) have crossed the threshold of my home, but (a) 15 years corporate infrastructure experience says Solaris is easier to deal with with mixed-ability staff in a massive corporate environment and (b) NEVER underestimate corporate politics and the requirement for the climber to have a ready response to the "what's your XYZ strategy, Bob?" question at the CIO's golf club. beats cost-benefit analysis every time...

Unifying unix? What about unifying Linux??

[MarkEst1973]

With so many distros offering so many different features and without a standard package installer... with every vendor maintaining their own kernel tree just to "out feature" another distro... how can you possibly say that linux will unify the unix market when the linux market itself isn't very well unified?

Microsoft has the unparalleled advantage of a single vision driving their platform and software. Right now, the babbling bazaar that is Linux has too many voices and too many chefs to spoil the soup.

While the great many voices working on Linux insure diversity and provide a wide range of choice, I, for one, think we can benefit from just a little less chocie and a little more standardization.

Re:Interesting....

[wolf31o2]

But what most people think of as Linux, and what is in fact the largest part of, GNU/Linux is the set of userland tools we use. From the basics like bash, tar, grep, sed, awk, etc., to the compilers (gcc, etc.,), and up to the desktop level tools (KDE-family, Gnome-family, mozilla, openoffice, and so on).

I think you completely missed that a good portion of the GNU tools can be replaced by a BSD userland and it is still Linux. Also, the big guys, like KDE, Gnome, and Mozilla, have nothing to do with GNU, at all. Anyone that thinks that Linux should be called GNU/Linux really deserves to be taken out and beaten for trying to give credit to a small group that adds *some* of the userland to Linux.

Personally, I always call the versions of Linux by the distribution, as the packaging done by the distribution has much more bearing on what goes into each than GNU ever does. If I am running a Red Hat box, then it is Red Hat Linux. A Gentoo box is Gentoo Linux. While Red Hat or Gentoo may use the GNU userland, they also include parts written by the distribution itself, along with parts written by the Gnome Foundation, KDE Project, Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, etc.

I mean, by your account, a Gentoo installation would have to be called Gentoo GNU/Gnome/KDE/Mozilla/Linux.

Re:I havent been counted...

[sean23007]

Yes, that may be, but what you're missing is that you still count towards Microsoft's share of the market. "Why?" You may ask ... well, it's because Microsoft still gets a sale of Windows for every system you buy. So the count is still "accurate" even though it isn't counting the number of systems in use. It's counting the number of sales. Microsoft still gets your money.